


Late

by Illiteracy_is_for_woozles



Series: The Future Is History [13]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (technically) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awesome Peggy Carter, BAMF Peggy Carter, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Het Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Escape, F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, Hydra (Marvel), Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Light Angst, Not Canon Compliant, POV Peggy Carter, Post-HYDRA Reveal, Rescue Missions, Time Travel, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 06:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illiteracy_is_for_woozles/pseuds/Illiteracy_is_for_woozles
Summary: A few years after SHIELD was founded, Peggy Carter had an accident at the discovery sight of a strange artifact and was declared dead.Almost 70 years later, the same artifact activates in a Hydra lab...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise! If you've been paying attention to my tumblr these past few days, you may have noticed that I've been chomping at the bit for the "surprise fic." Well, this is it!
> 
> Peggy was mistreated by the writers in the second and third Captain America movies and she deserved a better ending than to be turned into Mangst fodder like every other female character.
> 
> Thank @couchpotaito on tumblr, who asked for a prequel where I ended up wanting a scene with Peggy, and @fightyspidey aka 9VaniaStein9 on here, who was sending me posts about Peggy all day at the same time.

**_Death Valley,_ ** **1951**

Peggy climbed out of the truck and pulled her hat further over her face.

The sun blazed down on the team of agents as they milled about around her, everyone going in and out of the tent.

“What have you got for me, Howard?”

The man was bent over a table full of papers and read-outs, eyes glued to them as if they held the secrets to the universe. 

“Peg!” His eyes lit up when he saw her. “You're not going to believe the energy coming off of this thing.”

Peggy went to ask what he meant, but felt a tug inside her chest.

In the center of the tent was a pit surrounding a dust-covered, teal orb. An archaeological dig had discovered the basketball-sized artifact the day before, some of the students and scientists complaining about headaches and “strange feelings” when in its presence.

None of the agents had experienced anything so far, but Peggy felt her feet moving against her will as Howard droned on and on about the readings.

There was a strange buzzing in her head that grew louder as she climbed down the ladder into the pit. Howard stood at the top, reading from his papers excitedly.

That pull in Peggy’s gut grew stronger, all the colors in the world turning to grey except for the ocean’s teal blue. That strange Siren’s Song continued calling to her, everything else going silent as she reached out a hand.

A high-pitched whine erupted from the orb and a spike of energy shot up her arm. Someone shouted her name as the world was enveloped in white light and she felt that tug on her gut strengthen until she was pulled off her feet, landing on her stomach.

Peggy gasped in a breath, feeling like whatever had happened had sucked all of the oxygen from her lungs. The floor she was on wasn’t the dirt from the desert, but cold concrete.

A large gun she couldn’t identify, even if she  _ could _ see past the spots floating in front her eyes, pressed against the side of her head and a deep American accent behind it boomed and made her head hurt.

“Identify yourself.”

“Agent Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D.” She grit her teeth, keeping her hands splayed and her nose nearly pressed into the concrete.

She looked out of the corners of her eyes, studying her surroundings. She was in some sort of a lab, probably underground based on the lack of windows, and surrounded by equipment that was so advanced it would’ve made Howard drool. Men and women were scattered around, some in lab coats and some your average soldier. All were armed.

Another of the strange men took hold of her arms, pulling them behind her back and cuffing them before pulling her to her feet.

When she was able, she saw on a table behind her the orb. It’s glow was the same, but that instinctual pull, the irresistible instinct to just  _ touch _ it had completely disappeared. In fact, she almost felt a repulsion to the artifact.

A woman, maybe ten or fifteen years older than Peggy herself, stalked up to the three of them. Peggy felt trapped between the two guards and the lioness of a woman.

“Well, then.” She grinned. “ _ That’s _ what it does.”

The apparent superior paced in front of them, looking the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent up and down lecherously. Peggy tried not to squirm.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

The woman smirked, but walked over to another table and picked up a copy of  _ Time _ magazine, bringing it closer for Peggy to see. The front cover had a photograph of someone who looked remarkably like Howard, but she was more drawn to the date in the top right corner:  _ February, 2018. _

She felt her stomach clench and shook her head.

“Congratulations, Miss Carter.” The woman jerked her head to the two men. “You may just be the final nail in the coffin needed to secure Hydra’s hold on the world.”

Peggy felt herself being manhandled towards the door and began struggling at the mention of Hydra. The men were both at least a foot taller than her, though, and much larger and didn’t let go until they threw her in a holding cell.

Even the prison cells were advanced. She felt her confidence waver.

But no, there was no way what they said was true. She couldn’t be in the future.

Sixty-seven years. All of her friends, her family. They’d be dead. She’d be alone… 

No, they were alive and this was some kind of trick. She just had to escape and find a way back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and then they’d figure out how Hydra had done this.

Right? Right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Escape." You know, it's funny. It's spelled just like "escape."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help it. I really wanted to share the last chapter before I went to work...
> 
> Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but I learned the worst curse worse I have ever learned today and it's in Hindi. I seriously thought cursing in Yiddish was bad...

Steve watched the screen, hand running incessantly through his hand and over his beard.

On the screen, a woman who they had identified as Madeline Wheeler spoke, spouting a lot of the usual Hydra rhetoric. She was demanding weapons and a seat at the international table for her organization in exchange for the life of Peggy Carter.

“There’s no way it’s her,” Tony insisted. He was running facial recognition anyways.

“It’s her.” Bucky said. Steve could feel his eyes on him, even as he turned away from the screen and leaned with his hands on the table.

The others jumped as his fists came down, leaving twin dents in the metal.

Peggy had been handcuffed and gagged. That same fire in her eyes that she’d had so long ago was there. Hydra couldn’t fake something like that.

He looked up, seeing Sarah leaning against the wall next to Yasha and Lenore.

“Did you know about this?” He tried  _ really hard _ not to let his anger out on her. Time travel meant a lot of things, one of which was that they knew things that would and could happen but weren’t allowed to tell them about them in case something changed. He couldn’t forget that.

She nodded, grimly pointing to the video screen.

“That’s mom.”

Steve blinked, wondering why he hadn’t noticed before. Sarah had the same fighting spirit, Grant had her smile, and Teigen her eyes. It was glaringly obvious and for someone who worked with spies, it was kinda embarrassing that he didn’t realize it before.

He just… He’d read the files on all of his friends (they’d been more like family) and hers had been the shortest but the most cut-and-dry when it came to the  _ death _ part, even if half of it was redacted. It had been an accident; she got too close to an artifact because of bad safety measures a few years after S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded. And that was it.

There hadn’t been any closure there, but it was…  _ something _ . He hadn't had any any reason to question it.

“Cap, you need a minute?”

He waved Tony off.

“Where are they?” He straightened.

  
  
  


Out of the cell and back in after they recorded something.

The camera had been so  _ small _ . Everything was so small.

She hated that her surety was failing her, but the evidence just kept stacking up. She’d spent hours since the recording to think everything over and she couldn’t believe that she was in 1951 anymore.

Was S.H.I.E.L.D. even still in existence?

The woman had spoken specifically to a group called the  _ Avengers _ as if Peggy meant something to them. Who were they?

There was the promise that she would be handed over if Hydra was given “their fair share,” but why would an organization from the future have any interest in her? Any information she had was easily out of date, if not completely useless at this point and there couldn't be anyone that had known her left alive.

Peggy pondered these questions as she maneuvered a hairpin out using the wall. The pin fell to the floor and she was able to pick it up and begin unlocking her cuffs.

An explosion rocked the walls, nearly knocking the pin from her fingers. Shouts could be heard and footsteps echoed down the halls, a pair coming straight for her cell.

The door opened just as her left cuff clicked open. The guard heard the sound and charged, but she was up and using her momentum to swing a haymaker that sent him spinning into the far wall.

Peggy took the gun off his belt, ignoring the cuff still attached to her right wrist for the time being and unfortunately being unable to find an extra clip.  _ Ugh. Soldiers in the future were just as useless as in the past. _

The halls were mostly empty, everyone having rushed to fight off the intruders, but there were a few stragglers that she took down with ease.

Down one hall, she heard the sounds of struggles but the signs that she had been following said that that was the way out so she had no choice but to follow.

She kept her gun up as the sounds died and two men rounded the corner. She didn’t hesitate to fire, but the bullet deflected off of something shiny and round.

“Wait, stop! It’s me!”

Peggy froze but didn’t lower the gun. She knew that voice.

Just above that stupid shield, stripped of its paint to reveal the silver metal beneath, were blue eyes.

“Steve?”

The shield lowered a little more. He was a little older, maybe not much in the face but most definitely in the eyes, and he’d grown his beard out.

But he couldn’t be here. He was dead.

Another man, another blonde with a bow in hand and quiver full of arrows on his back, stood behind him with his hands up in the air.

She turned back to Steve, gun still trained on him.

“I know.” He winced, an apology written across his face. “I’m late, but I can explain.”

_ Was he  _ really  _ referencing their date right now? _

She dropped her gun arm, incredulous, until gunfire erupted behind her. Steve grabbed her arm and yanked her back around the corner he'd come from.

The three of them ran down the hall, turning corners that seemed random to her but he and the stranger seemed to know exactly where they were going.

“How are you here?”

“Ice is cold.”

She rolled her eyes. There was  _ no way _ Howard’s theory was right.

They passed rooms and halls full of fallen Hydra agents.

Peggy nearly shot the shadow that appeared beside her at one point.

“Oh, come on, Carter. You don’t hate me that much, do you?”

Peggy looked between Steve and Barnes, trying to figure out how she had ended up in a ghost story. Maybe she hadn’t travelled through time; maybe this was just an extremely strange, artifact-induced dream.

But, if it was a dream, wouldn’t they look the same as they were the last she saw of them?

Barnes’ hair was down to his shoulders and he was wearing more black leather than Peggy had ever seen in one place. His eyes were brighter, though, more hopeful with the kind of emotion you would see in a man who had a full life ahead of him.

But he’d  _ fallen off a train! _

A soldier came around a corner behind him and Barnes lifted and fired his gun without even looking, the bullet hitting the Hydra soldier right between the eyes.

“Are we going to stand around here all day or can we go home?”

Peggy's eyes widened but Steve just shook his head as he brought his hand to his ear.

“Objective acquired. Everybody on the bus. Wheels up in five.”

They made their way out through a large hole in the wall, where a plane of some sort waited outside for them.

A young woman with blue skin and red eyes stuck halfway out of the back hatch with a smile on her face. Next to her stood a young man resembling Barnes with red hair and a number of scars.

“Hello, Agent Carter. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

Peggy gaped, tapping Steve on the arm as they took their seats near the back and the rest of the plane filled with people. A shirtless man with curly, black hair walked straight in and laid down on the floor on his stomach in front of their feet.

“Oh, right. I'm sorry, this is Lenore and Yasha.” Steve waved in the direction of the first two as the rest gathered near the front, completely ignoring the shirtless man. “I'll introduce you to the rest of the Avengers later.”

Yasha and Lenore shut the doors before taking their seats and the plane took off, the engines growing louder.

She turned to Steve, confusion giving way to frustration. Nothing made  _ sense _ .

“Are there any more surprises for me?” She hooked a thumb over at Barnes, who was sitting on a bench next a woman with hair the same shade as the boy’s on his other side and the orb in a glass case between their feet.

Steve stuttered as he helped her pick the lock on her other cuff, but he was cut off by mad cackling from the archer.

“Hoo-boy, does he ever!”

“Clint,” the red-haired woman said slowly. “When people are having a private conversation near the back of the plane and away from everyone else, you turn  _ down _ your hearing aids like a  _ polite _ person.”

“Who ever said I was polite?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Steve. And Clint is a gift.  
> (Please, tell me someone else was upset about the lack of hearing aids in the MCU besides me)
> 
> The Prequel is up next!!! Avengers // 2043 is full of angst and time skips, so be prepared, true believers! (I just made myself cry...)

**Author's Note:**

> This is highly experimental, so leave me a comment and/or a kudos to let me know what you think!


End file.
